


Dead Space

by Solia



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Near Death, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22522270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solia/pseuds/Solia
Summary: "Don't die, Rey. You're not used to the cold of dead space. And I need you alive to finish fixing this bucket of bolts."A short bit of Reylo hurt/comfort in which Rey has kidnapped Kylo Ren onboard the Millennium Falcon but they’ve run into serious trouble. A scene my other fic White Noise may have been building to. Set post-TLJ.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 25
Kudos: 77





	Dead Space

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor claim to own, Star Wars, any of its characters, settings or recognisable narrative elements. 
> 
> Author's Notes: This fic has been available for some time on Tumblr but is only now being added to AO3. I had a bigger arc planned when I started writing White Noise, and it may have been building toward something like this, but I didn't have the time or the energy to devote to writing what came in between. Perhaps at a later point I will fill in the blanks. All the same, enjoy :)

She woke suddenly to what could only be described as an ominous nudge from the Force. _Ben_. Where was he, and why did she feel so deeply anxious for him? The cockpit was silent and colder than ever, the little sparkles of frost that had been just in the corners before now stretching across the window. Her skin was all goose bumps, her fingers and toes unfeeling, her lips cracked. Her circulation, she detected, was sluggish, as were her thoughts. If the Force hadn’t alerted her, she mightn’t have woken at all. The temperature of the ship had dropped dangerously low. “ _Don’t die, Rey_ ,” he mocked her at the start of each sleep cycle. “ _You’re not used to the cold of dead space. But I need you alive to finish fixing this bucket of bolts_.” She sat forward, exhalation condensing into a cloud, and looked behind her at the door. Open. Dark. Silence beyond it. The air was thinning, thinner than she’d ever known, and when even the deepest of breaths only half-filled her lungs and the call of her companion’s name sounded like a pale echo bouncing around what was left of the ship, she could be forgiven for imagining this was what the vacuum of space felt like.

“Ben?” she called again, coughing once when the syllable croaked through her dry throat. But she knew, dully, instinctively, that she was alone. He couldn’t hear her. There was no reply but the chattering of her own teeth. 

A soft _whirr_ in the stillness snagged her attention and she whirled back to the dashboard with a thudding heart. A standby light had blinked on, and something, some system, was running beneath the dash. But how? The entire ship was dead. They had no power, not even basic systems. All the conduits were blown apart in her escape from the First Order and the channels for the power disconnected from the source.

Uncertainly she touched her fingertip to the glowing red light. It was even colder than she, and she shivered. When she took her finger away, it still shone. How…? Then the two tiny displays beside it, both glowing blue letters, lit up. _Reserve power connected_. _Charging_.

How could this be? The reserve power had been completely drained for more than a day by now, and without a channel to the main power source – its every conduit blown into space – it could not recharge.

Another display, separate from these, came to life. _Life support systems offline. Atmosphere critical._ No kidding. But how were these sensors kicking back in after days without power? What was powering the lights to enable them to even tell her? Nothing they’d done in the past two days had really made a difference, with the disconnected core only truly reachable from outside the –

“ _Ben!_ ” she shouted with sickening realisation, lurching forward out of the pilot’s seat to throw herself at the window. The glass was cold enough to sting her palms and her breath misted the thick glass even worse, and try as she might to lean aside over the mostly-dead dashboard to see, she couldn’t get a view of him, but inside she _knew_. He was outside. And he was in trouble. 

She shoved away from the windscreen and raced out of the cockpit into the dark, feeling her way along the curved walls with her shaking hands. She recalled the storage cupboard where she’d found the spacesuits and remembered hoping he wouldn’t notice. But what a stupid thing to think. He was Ben Solo – this was his father’s ship – he’d grown up in its halls. He knew where the best food was hidden. He knew which spaces were coldest and best ventilated. _Of course_ he knew where the spacesuits were kept for emergencies, and of course he’d taken one, and an oxygen pack.

“No, no, no…” she whispered as her frigid, fumbling hands sifted through the remaining packs in the darkness. The gauges glowed dimly. Ten percent. Seven percent. Fourteen percent. Two percent. They were all so low. She had drained them in her trips through the exclusion zones to do the patching up. Surely, the great Kylo Ren had not taken his survival lightly. He would have plenty of air. Right?

The deep sense of foreboding inside her told her not to be presumptuous.

“Kylo?” she called out, looking up at the unlit metallic ceiling, hoping to hear his returning footsteps on the hull or some _clink_ as he finished up whatever reconstruction job he was doing. She strained to hear. Thin silence responded. Her worry inflated. “ _Ben!?_ ”

Her concern for him must have broken some barrier, because her voice was accompanied by a _push_ in the Force, and she felt the swelling of pressure and her vision clouded and then narrowed with compressed light and her ears rung with heavy white noise, all of it squeezing in on her and then: she was connected to him.

 _Stop wasting our air_ , he said in her ear, voice irritable and low, and she spun, trying to see him. But he was nowhere. Or maybe it was just too dark. All she saw were the outlines of her surroundings, lit by the thin glow coming from the cockpit. The game table. The seating. The curving halls locked down.

“Where are you?” she asked. Her voice shook with more than just the cold, which she knew was now bitterly low. “Why can’t I see you?”

 _I can’t see you either_ , he admitted, and this time he sounded less annoyed, breathier. Vaguer. She reached out for him and felt him at the far end of the ship, where the core was. Outside. _Did it work_?

“The systems are coming back online,” she told him, glancing back in the direction of the cockpit. “Power reserves are charging, and the life support sensors are on.” She bit her lip, feeling it split beneath her teeth. There wasn’t enough blood in her face to allow it to bleed, and she was too cold for pain so slight. “Come back, please. I have a really bad feeling.”

 _Probably something to do with the oxygen I have left_ , he concluded lightly, but she heard the unwilling tension in his voice even through the dense white noise that throbbed between them. She looked into the cupboard again at all the other used-up oxygen packs.

“Which is?” she pushed, unsure she wanted to know.

 _I’m on my way back_ , he answered instead. _I got out without an issue but now with the power coming back… I can’t be certain it won’t… try to reject an outside entry_ … He sounded breathless, his rhythm out of whack, like he was under heavy strain or running up a hill. She took a useless step in his direction and stopped, paralysed with worry. _Might need you to… to do an override, if it’ll let you. My father, you know… Paranoid_.

He couldn’t see her but all the same, she nodded and bolted back to the cockpit. She assessed the dashboard quickly. There were no new lights. No new systems, which should mean no unexpected lockouts. “You should be fine. How far away are you? I can meet you-”

 _No_ , he cut her off, voice swelling with intensity over their connection. _It’s not safe_.

“It’s not safe for you, either,” she insisted. She grasped the co-pilot’s chair, feeling faint as the lack of oxygen and low temperature and now her stillness after all the adrenaline began to set in. None of this had been safe from the outset. She was on a dead ship, wanted by the First Order, clinging to a First Order star destroyer _literally_ under their noses, with their Supreme Leader, a Force-wielder of talent far surpassing her own, her kind-of captive onboard. “Just hurry. Please.”

There was no response. She made herself breathe shallowly to conserve their air, and stared at the lights on the dash. _Reserve power connected_. _Charging_. _Life support systems offline. Atmosphere critical_. He’d done it. He’d risked his life to go outside and fix the greatest threat to their existence, and reconnected their power. Once the reserves reached a minimal charge for supporting the oxygen filters and temperature regulator, those systems would be restored. He’d done it.

Kylo Ren had saved both their lives.

But now she frowned slightly. She still felt the throbby swell of the Force bond between them, but it was slipping, weakening.

“Are you alright?” she asked, and waited. No reply. “Kylo? Kylo Ren, can you hear me?”

 _No_. But the answer didn’t come from him. It came from elsewhere, within her, maybe, and she just knew. Her stomach felt full of lead as she squeezed her eyes shut and _pushed_ outward, feeling for him, reaching for him. He was near, and she saw him. Hunched over. On his knees, staggering in the spacesuit, clinging to the hull of the _Falcon_ outside. His oxygen pack dangling from his mask. _Empty_.

“No!” She ran again from the cockpit, through the dark, to the sealed heavy door that blocked her from the roof hatch exit. He’d gotten through, somehow, without draining their air into the next compartment, and he’d gotten out. Somehow. Her brain wouldn’t work, starved as it was of air. She looked around. How, how, how?

With the Force, obviously, since he was such a damn master in it. She suddenly saw him in her memory, lifting his hand, forming that forcefield as a barrier to block the doorway as she passed through it to do her repairs. He could do it. So could she.

She went back to the oxygen canisters and grabbed the first one she found. There wasn’t time for a spacesuit. They took full minutes to don; minutes her companion did not have. The Force had woken her to save him. It would provide.

She strapped the mask on over her face as she strode back to the door. There was no power to mechanically lift the heavy door, but Kylo had done it. So could she. If she didn’t, he would die out there. She didn’t know where the strength or knowledge came from but she raised a hand and a bluish shield of energy burst forth, clinging to the frame of the door like a skin. With her other hand she lifted. The Force flowed through her and slid the door up effortlessly, revealing utter blackness beyond. She expected the suck of her atmosphere departing into the vacuum, but it didn’t. Her shield held. She dropped her hands and her work remained. She bolted through, reaching out with her feelings as Luke had told her, sensing the curve of the path through the ship, sensing the obstacles she must dodge, charging ahead to where she felt the dying spirit of Kylo Ren dimming like a beacon at the end of its battery life.

The mask began to fog and she realised she’d forgotten to activate the oxygen flow. As she jogged through the darkness, she grabbed the canister and turned it to find the switch. Two percent. Of all the canisters to choose? There was no time to go back. She started her air flow and ran harder, finding the thin air of the mask worryingly similar to that of the _Millennium Falcon_.

Hall after hall, bend after bend. She almost ran straight past the ladder to the exit hatch, and only slowed herself by catching the edge of the chute with her hand, sending a pang of pain through her arm and shoulder as the starved, cold muscles strained and tore. She ignored it and ripped herself back, grabbing the rungs and wrenching herself up. It was meant to be an elevator but without the power, she would do without. Her lungs burned. Her muscles protested. But the Force flooded her as she reached the top and raised her hand, a bubble of bluish shielding erupting to fill the gap as the hatch swung open, keeping a small domed safe space for her that would mimic the pressure of the ship as she climbed to the top and looked out.

“ _Kylo!_ ”

Her lungs and heart might have burst with horror to see him dragging himself with one arm, life almost gone from him, existing on spite and determination alone since his lungs weren’t operating and therefore neither was the rest of him. He was still much too far away, a good ten metres, which may as well have been a million while she was trapped in her dome of liveable pressure while he died out there in the spacesuit she would need to wear to get to him.

“Come on, Kylo Ren!” she begged, banging her hands on the rim of the hatch she couldn’t step out of. “Please, please, get up!”

His fist clenched as though he heard her and he swung his arm clumsily to try to get a new handhold. He pulled – his big body shifted – but then the tension and strength went out of him, and he collapsed. His head lolled back and she saw his face. White, the scar painfully visible, his dark eyes rolled back in his head to reveal bloodshot whites, his mouth open in an agonised gasp for air he didn’t have. Through their connection, she felt his heart falter. She _heard_ it.

“ _No!_ ” she screamed, grabbing her own hair uselessly. Her mask fogged up again as she began to cry and her air ran dangerously low. She was going to die out here, watching him die, a gargantuan First Order star destroyer that would have swooped in and saved him at any moment she’d allowed him to call for help filling the background of their tragedy, filling her with guilt. “No, please! Wake up! You’ve got to _move_.”

She reached out for him with both hands and _pulled_. As though tied on a string, he lurched and slid and then tumbled forward across the hull, falling in a heap not four metres away. She choked on a sob, knowing this was all her fault. She shouldn’t have fallen asleep, she shouldn’t have let him go out, she should have done this herself, she shouldn’t have taken him in the first place. She pulled again. This time nothing happened. Her desperation and remorse had dulled her connection to the Force. Around her, the blue energy sputtered. Fear flickered in her.

 _No_. The Force had willed this, had willed her awake despite the conditions that would have lulled her into a quiet death, and had willed her to go after him. Why, if not to save him? She inhaled the last good swallow of air in her mask and squared her shoulders. The forcefield dome keeping her alive stabilised. The ocean of potential inside her stilled. She reached again for Kylo Ren.

He lifted clear of the hull and fell again, right beside the hatch. His arm flopped to the side, lifeless, and slipped through the forcefield. Heart fluttering, either with hope or with oxygen deprivation, she grabbed him and yanked. He fell heavily, rolling into her, his weight crushing her against the ladder, but still she pulled until she had his whole body through the hatch. Then, his chest against hers, his head inside its mask on her shoulder, his gloved hand weakly holding the rung beside her head, her arm locked under his arm and around his back, she let the hatch swing shut, let the forcefield die, and cautiously started them down the ladder.

It was awkward and clumsy. She dropped him twice, just barely catching him by an arm before he fell to the bottom the first time and missing him completely the second. They were nearer to the bottom then, and he landed heavily. She jumped down beside him, pulse racing.

“Kylo,” she whispered, shaking him. He couldn’t respond. His expression of death made her sick. Instantly she reached for her air canister.

 _No_.

She hesitated only a split second. Was that the Force, or him, or her inner sense of self-preservation? She ignored it and took a breath. She disconnected her air supply, quickly replacing his empty one.

There wasn’t time to see if it worked. She had to get them both to safety. She stood, feeling dizzy, and grabbed him under his arms. She dragged him through the dark, past the upturned crates and other obstacles that would slow them down, through hall after hall and bend after bend. Her vision, though there was little to see anyway, blurred, and she began to see stars. Stars, inside? She tried to breathe, but there was little left inside her mask. The mere attempt made her feel panicky, and made her try again, though there was even less on each subsequent attempt. She was dying, he was dying.

But his heart still beat, erratic and frail through the pulse might be. It was the sound of hope, and it kept her going.

She wasn’t watching where she was going, hurrying backwards dragging her enemy, the galaxy’s greatest threat and the murderer of Han Solo and countless others, to safety, but she _felt_ when she passed through the forcefield she’d built to protect their limited oxygenated zone. She ripped her suffocating mask off and threw it aside, gasping down air that felt thick and joyous despite being almost too thin to support life, and her exhausted body collapsed into a kneel beside Kylo Ren. He wasn’t moving. She dug shaking fingers into the neck seam of his spacesuit and tore the face shield away. Creature in a mask, indeed. She touched fingers to his face – cold – and his lips – lifeless – and shook him.

“Kylo,” she begged, voice cracking. “Please, _please_ , wake up.”

His lungs had been starved, punished for trying to draw air in. Were they even still trying? Inspired, desperate, she inhaled as deep as the thin air would allow and bent over him to press her mouth against his. His lips were cold, slack, completely unalike yesterday’s firm, unexpected heat. She tried not to think of that and blew, hard, trying to inflate his lungs. She pulled back – had it worked? Hard to say, and he didn’t react. She lay a hand on his strong chest and took another breath, and gave this one to him, too. This time, she felt his breastbone pressing upward, his ribcage expanding with the inflation of his lungs. She ran out of air and opened her eyes. His were closed.

“Please,” she murmured against his mouth, cold lips brushing cold lips. “Don’t die.” 

A surge in the Force sent loose items scattered around the space everywhere, tools bouncing off walls, drawers slamming shut, all of it in the near-darkness. She ducked instinctively and he inhaled in a strangled gasp, dark bloodshot eyes flying open in panic. Her heart flew and her fingers tightened on the front of his spacesuit. Alive. He was alive. He thrashed with the Force, his body unresponsive, and around them, larger things crashed over – crates, toolkits, trolleys – spiking her with fear, all chaos to prove the Supreme Leader was awake. But his wild gaze, blinking hard, met hers, and her eyes stung with relief as he tried to sit up, still sucking in oxygen.

“Rey…” he tried to say, barely a croak, a shaking hand reaching for her and missing her, falling aside. His fingers sparked with silvery bolts of electricity, startling her. His eyes wouldn’t focus, the pupils mismatched. Beneath her fingers, she could feel his whole body shaking. Pressure sickness, altitude sickness, something like that she was sure, after his near-suffocation and now the rush of oxygen to his starved body. Plus the cold.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, fingers probing over the suit to find the release seams as something else smashed against a wall further away. “You’re alive. You’re okay. Everything’s alright now.” For him, or for her? She hurriedly freed him of the spacesuit, pulling it away to find his black-clad body twitching and convulsing underneath. Out of his control. She pulled him toward her as he tried again to sit upright, as his confusion and overdose of power combined to send a Force wave through their cabin that burst her shield on the door beside them but also made the door slam down, sealing their atmosphere in. She swallowed her scream, but the reverberation of the emergency door’s violent closure shook her. “Shh, I’m here. You can stop. We’re okay. You did it. You saved us. Ben,” she soothed shakily, pushing back his hair with one hand and laying her hand flat on his face. “Let go.”

It seemed to be the right thing to say. He paused, swaying on the arm he leaned on. It shook. She tugged him again and he lost balance, and he collapsed gratefully into her lap, the weight of his upper body pressing on her legs, curling his face into her stomach, wrapping his arms around her shamelessly, curling himself up tight against the cold as she rubbed her palms along his arm, his shoulder, trying to warm him. The banging and crashing stopped. Slowly, the tremors in his muscles stopped and his breaths evened out. He was coming back to himself.

“I wasn’t leaving,” he managed after a while, his breath warm on her skin through her clothing. Everything, everywhere his body wasn’t making contact with hers, was beyond cold, unfeeling, but where he did touch – fire by comparison. “You should know I wasn’t leaving you.”

She tried to laugh but it sounded like a sob. She couldn’t even articulate the relief that coursed through her as she held him. She’d thought he was lost, yet here he was, in her arms, alive. Her enemy, the man who would have killed her, her captor and then her torturer and then her saviour from Snoke and then her captive and then her teacher and then her… friend? What were they to each other? It hadn’t even occurred to her that he would have made good on his promise to throw this restoration effort in once the going got critical and get First Order assistance in rescuing himself and arresting her. Of course, that’s what she should have thought of first when she couldn’t find him – assumed he’d deserted her and marched out and along the hull to the window of the star destroyer to get help. But she hadn’t.

“You’re freezing,” she told him, feeling her own lower lip wobbling with the shiver in her jaw, no matter how she tensed it. His arms tightened around her a little as she shifted to get her legs out from under them but he let go as she disentangled herself. She hauled him to his feet, where he was unsteady at first and leaned on her heavily. “You need to rest.”

“So do you,” he replied. She felt the building aura of power around him as he grew more alert and drew the Force in tighter around himself. She felt that aura stroke her gently, feeling her own energy field. “You’re exhausted. And freezing.”

“I didn’t just die on a spacewalk,” she answered primly, looping his arm over her shoulders and starting him toward the bedroom. His feet shuffled, but the further they walked, the more steady he became. The less he leaned on her, though the difference was slight – she noticed the weight of him on her shoulders, against her side. She couldn’t help but notice when she grasped his wrist to get a stronger grip on his arm, he twisted it to take her hand in his. His fingers threaded with hers. She tried not to blush at the fluttery feeling she got deep in her stomach. This lack of oxygen, it was making her silly.

“It doesn’t appear I did either,” he mumbled as she got him inside the room. “No, I’m fine…”

She ducked her head out from under his arm and dumped him when she sensed she was at the edge of the bed. He sat heavily, unable to hold himself up without her. She bent to feel for the blankets but outside the bedroom, in the main communal area where they’d just been, a light suddenly flickered to life.

“Emergency lights are back on,” he muttered tiredly, as she squeezed her eyes shut against the brightness. But it wasn’t even that bright, she realised slowly. She made her eyelids open up and look back. It was indeed the emergency light, dimly glowing, just a single light. She turned back to him, heart soaring with hope at the realisation of what this must mean. But his eyes were closed and he dropped his head. Still, she felt the swelling of power around him, building up.

“Get under the blankets,” she instructed, ignoring his groan of protest. “I’ll go and check on this.”

It was hard to leave him, the Supreme Leader sitting there looking defeated and broken in the sliver of half-light given off by the one emergency light, his scar – the scar she’d given him – stark against the paleness of his exhausted face. But she made herself pull away, and hurried to the cockpit once again.

More lights glowed in the dash, but the most exciting display of all: _Life support systems undergoing restoration. Calibrating. Equalising. Standby_.

This time she really did laugh. He had saved them. They were going to live. She drew a deep, deep breath until she felt dizzy and had to clutch the pilot’s chair to stop herself falling over, but it wasn’t a waste, because soon they’d have a cabin full of air again. Temperate air, temperature-controlled. She ran back, tripping on all the strewn items she’d dodged in the dark, the litter of Kylo Ren’s uncontrollable grip on the Force. She caught herself on the doorway to his room, still half-laughing, delirious.

“You did it,” she gasped, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply again. “You’re amazing.”

She opened her eyes and it was true: he was. The laughter died, the delirium did not. He was back on his feet now, stronger. The Force still swirled around him, feeding him, grounding him, luring her in. She didn’t try to resist, just crossed the space between them to stand before him, almost toe-to-toe. He looked down at her. She looked up at him. How many times had she looked into this face, and how many different faces had she seen there? Kylo Ren, fear-monger, monster, murderer. Ben Solo, tormented boy, heir of the Force, ally. Han Solo’s features. Leia Organa’s eyes. Now who looked down into her eyes, her soul? Supreme Leader of the First Order Kylo Ren, teammate, friend… something else. Intensity swelled between them.

“You saved me,” he murmured, voice low as he raised his hand to her face, stopping shy of touching her. She reached up to take his hand, but likewise stopped herself, feeling the invisible glow of him in the energy radiating just beyond his skin.

“You saved us both,” she answered just as softly. She swallowed and dropped her hand as he lowered his, slowly tracing the length of her loose hair without touching, curving around her shoulder, somehow still leaving a trail of heat everywhere he _didn’t_ touch, all the way down her arm to hover over her wrist. He brought his other hand to her mouth, still without making contact, though the deepening of colour in his eyes told her he wanted to. Reason told her she shouldn’t, but she wanted him to as well. She wanted him to. Who _was_ she? She dropped her gaze. “You… you should get warmed up,” she muttered, cheeks warming as she spoke. She was sure her breath reached his fingertips, microns away from her lips.

“So should you,” he countered. He curled his fingers into a fist, perhaps to restrain himself from touching her, but she felt no fear of him. She should. She didn’t. He nudged his fist lightly at her chin, and though he didn’t touch her, a soft push of the Force did, perhaps unconsciously sent, and she raised her face a little. “I can think of a way.” He swallowed; she saw it in his throat, and shivered in apprehension. He opened his hand and his breathing quickened as he ran his open gloved hand down the column of her exposed throat, the throat he’d crushed, the throat he’d repaired, over her chest, dragging his gaze after his hand. She made herself stay still, thrilling with the danger of him, the power of him, and gave way a little when he took his hand away before he could change his mind. She struggled to draw any breath at all, feeling like he’d stolen it as he roamed over her body. He cleared his throat. “The life support systems will start with oxygen, and with what we’ve got left, it’ll be a while at that before we get any heating. Skin contact is the best way to generate new heat.”

Again he traced her face. Again he didn’t make contact. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. “So touch me.”

He paused, and withdrew his hand. Dark eyes heavy on her. “It’s a survival tactic. That’s all.”

“I know it is,” she exhaled. She felt reckless. Bravely she raised her hand again and laid it in the centre of his chest. She felt him inhale deeply in reaction, and she was disappointed to see her fingers quaking against him. Cold. Cold and terror.

He extended a hand, eyes dark with conflict, and pressed his fingertips to her breastbone. She inhaled like the life support systems had just kicked in. She felt heady, even headier as he flattened his hand on her skin and ran it along her collarbone, up her neck, into her hair… She sighed and let her forehead fall forward onto his chest, indulgent, hungry. She dug her fingers into the thick material of his black suit as she felt him bend at the middle to lower his face beside hers, and she heard his breath at her ear. It made her shudder with anticipation. His hands on her shoulders. Possessive. She lifted her face and found her chin on his shoulder, his exposed neck before her, the hair on his skin standing on end when she breathed, the scent of him crowding her senses and overwhelming her.

His hands tightened on her shoulders and slid the wraps of her clothing off them, letting them slide down her arms. Again, anticipation thrilled through her. Anticipation for what?

Trying to breathe properly, she made herself step back. He released her. The spell faltered, though did not break its hold on her completely. What did she think was going to happen here? What did she _want_ to happen here?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. His low voice seemed to reverberate through her bones and drew her in like a magnet. It was with shaky effort that she remained in place.

“I know.”

He stood still, watching her while she deliberated. He swept his hand back; the blankets atop the bed swept back, too. An invitation. Suddenly she felt nervous, a little afraid. She was losing her head with him, getting caught up in… in _him_. Where could this go that wasn’t fundamentally wrong? Rationally speaking, yes, it made sense for them to pool body heat, but would it stop there? Did she want to be quite so vulnerable with him, murderer, traitor, enemy?

Could she bare her body to him and not burn from head to toe in fear of his judgement, and then burn again in shame for caring for his judgement?

He got sick of waiting for her. He reached behind his neck and began to unfasten his shirt, all the while watching her closely, and while she watched breathlessly, he pulled the shirt off over his head. His soft hair fell over his face and he shook it back; his incredible chest, scarred by her lightsaber, drew her covetous gaze down. He cast the black clothing aside. Could she throw herself at him now? She stood rooted to the floor, breaths quick and shallow. Sinful. She wanted him.

But he just nearly died and she just nearly died and they were on opposite sides of the war and he was a terrible, terrible person and she _wanted_ him, his weight on her again, his hands on her again, her hands on him, on the bare skin of his hard sculpted chest, tracing the knotted pattern of the slash she’d made from his neck down, feeling the motion of hard-earned muscle underneath…

His hands moved to his waist and with a jolt she realised he meant to unfasten his pants, and she abruptly turned away, closing her eyes in embarrassment.

“I’m, uh…” she stammered, shaking her head, eyes still squeezed shut. “I’ll give you a minute.”

“You can sleep in here alone, if you’d rather, and I can sleep on the bench at the games table.”

He meant it; she heard it in his voice. He would give her space if she asked. But she couldn’t ask because she didn’t want it. Anyway, she reasoned weakly, he was too tall to sleep on a bench, and sleeping alone would be even colder tonight than it had been for the last two nights, their ambient temperature now miserably low. They would both be warmer together than apart while they awaited the life support reboot. Right now, burning with desire and embarrassment, it was difficult to recall, but the _Falcon_ was hovering just above freezing.

“No, it’s… I’m fine.” She swallowed, her dry throat sticking painfully. She was being childish. “Go ahead. I’ll…” She made herself tug her dangling sleeves all the way down before she could freeze up again, and she shoved the entire shirt down, catching her trousers at her hips and leaning over to shimmy hurriedly out of it all, all without looking back at him. She instantly noticed the cold of the air moving in on her previously clothed torso and legs, and she shivered violently, wrapping her arms over her chest, immediately more worried about the bitter cold than about Kylo Ren standing behind her, mostly naked as well, watching her, judging her, assessing her…

His skin burned hot with the dark power that flowed through his veins when his arms came around her and pulled her gently back into him. His hand on her stomach might have left a steaming five-fingered imprint; the expanse of her back and the backs of her legs stretched flat against him might have blistered; her cheek where his own scarred cheek pressed against her, his warm breath expelled from his nostrils _so close_ she could breathe him in, might have melted to him. But she would have relished it.

“Better?” he murmured into her hair, inhaling slowly, like he wanted to breathe her in, too. She couldn’t trust her voice to answer, so she nodded, eyes still shut tight. She couldn’t believe this was happening. He tugged her with him as he lowered himself onto the bed, and she went willingly, feeling him pull the blankets up over them both and tuck them in around her shoulders. She twisted in his grip to face him, surprised by her own daring even more so when she snuggled closer, curling her arms around herself, rewarded by his strong arms tightening around her in an even fiercer embrace. Locking her to him. Her breath felt hot on her face as it deflected from his chest.

She was in bed with Supreme Leader Ren. Mostly naked. She’d just saved his life instead of leaving him to die and doing the whole galaxy a favour. Because he’d been trying to save hers.

Power still pulsed around him, filling him, bolstering him, helping him regenerate, and he burned with it, and she basked in it. Basked in his badness, his danger and his untapped passion. His heat drove her fear of freezing to death overnight away, and she felt herself sinking, oddly content, oddly secure. Without thinking, she withdrew one of her arms from the tight cradled position between them and slung it over his midsection. She felt him tense, and bit her dry, split lip again, afraid of overstepping. Where was the line? Did they even have a line? She threw caution to the winds – when had she even bothered to listen to caution today? – and tightened her arm, flattening her hand on his smooth back, evidencing that it was no accidental casual gesture.

He shifted, and she thought he’d push away from her, but he ran a hand up the length of her, leaving a trail of steam no doubt, and wove it into her hair. She trembled, intoxicated by his touch. He held her head while he pressed his face to her crown, inhaling her, warming her with his exhalations, claiming her, or did she imagine that part? She couldn’t have imagined that he softly kissed the top of her head. Her eyes flew open.

“Don’t die, Rey,” he instructed quietly, and slid his arms back around her shoulders in a loose hug conducive to sleeping. Pulse skipping loudly in her ears, she tilted her chin to look up at him. His eyes were shut; he was ready to fall asleep. His face was still, relaxed, content, the ugly red scar she’d marked him with tracing down his cheek towards her. She lay safe and warm in his arms as he drifted to sleep, unafraid of her, unafraid of betrayal by her, and she marvelled at the incredulity of this scenario.

“Don’t die, Ben,” she whispered back, and curled back into him to fall asleep as well, hiding in his heat and his scent and his power and his frightening beauty for just a few more hours before the day cycle began and everything would have to go back the way it was before.


End file.
